Mike the Guitar is an old-fashioned platform game where you control
Mike, a guitar that has to collect eight plectrums. The whole scenery takes
place on a musical sheet. It is a rather basic but nevertheless amusing little
game that will transport you into the pre-1985 gaming era. There are no levels
and everything is basic, from the graphics to the gameplay. It is not the
easiest game, though, but it definitely offers the player some enjoyable time.
I found it quite amusing and I also liked the concept. Overall, it is an
original idea that deserves some attention.

Mikie is infatuated with a gorgeous girl in another class, but to woo her, he
has to collect hearts. This means bunking off classes, so first of all, he's got
to collect the hearts which his classmates are sitting on by farting next to
them (yuk!) and forcing them to move to another desk, while avoiding the
teacher. Subsequent levels see you in other rooms in the school collecting more
hearts, before fighting off her admirers and kissing her on the cheek – awww!
This was apparently the first game ever to feature semi-naked women, although
the graphics aren't up to much, and neither is the game itself – getting out of
the classroom is far too difficult.

The Milk Race was a 1000-mile cycle race across England, and the last one was
held in 1993. In the game, you're competing against 83 other cyclists in the
1987 event, starting in Newcastle upon Tyne and finishing in the streets of
London. The competitors are spread out into groups at the start of each stage,
and to qualify for the next stage, you must finish ahead of the other members of
your group. It sounds like a joystick-waggling game, but thankfully it isn't;
you just have to select the right speed and gears for the terrain, and there's a
box at the top right of the screen which shows the gradient. You can collect
milk bottles to boost your energy as well. The graphics aren't spectacular, but
the music is really good. It's good while it lasts, because ultimately the game
is rather easy.

You're a businessman who tries to become a millionaire. I guess that wasn't the
case of the creator of this game... You first have to decide which products you
want to sell, and the skill level of your opponent (you may as well play against
a human player). Then, you adjust a few parameters (price, quality, etc.)
and the computer will tell you how much money you've earned... and that's all!
There are no pictures, except a few diagrams. It's written in BASIC and it
shows. Forget this one!

Southampton, 1988; nuclear bombs have been dropped on the UK, and China has
taken control with a totalitarian régime known as The System. A boy
called Robin has transported himself to this scenario while his body remains in
the present, in 1987. Can he prevent this nuclear holocaust from occurring? This
is an intriguing text adventure which is based on a book which also comes with
the game; it's necessary to read it to understand the background to events, and
what you need to do. The locations are laid out in an extremely confusing and
illogical manner which will frustrate many people, and random events can occur
which prevent you from making progress. Despite this, I found the game to be
quite gripping, although you will need a lot of patience to play it.

In Mindshadow, you find yourself stranded upon a desert island with no
memory of how you arrived there. Your first task is therefore to find a means of
escape making use of the objects scattered around the island. Each location is
accompanied by a (quickly rendered) image relative to your positon on the game
map, adding an extra sense of realism to the game. Some of the scenery will
change once you've solved a puzzle – a nice touch. The game also includes an
interactive tutorial to help get you started. Mindshadow quickly becomes
an addictive challenge, especially after you escape the island and learn more
about your past.

A brain-teasing puzzle game where you must rotate all the dice so that each of
the six columns contains the corresponding dice – so the dice showing 1 go into
the leftmost column, and the dice showing 6 go into the rightmost column. It's
easy for the first 30 or so levels, but after that, the levels have two or more
'floors', and you'll also need to swap groups of dice between the floors. The
game is mostly written in BASIC and is well known for having a million levels!
Needless to say, no one is ever going to get anywhere close to that target.
There's not much to say about the graphics – they don't need to be impressive
for this type of game, and they certainly aren't – and the sound is awful as
well.

The agent MALOX has stolen the secret formula for the Megatron bomb and plans to
sell it to an enemy power. MALOX is located within a labyrinth of eighty rooms,
and you must explore all of the rooms one by one to reach him and kill him. Each
room contains a mixture of enemies and obstacles. Most of the enemies will home
in on you, and the majority of them can be stunned temporarily with your laser,
but some of them are invulnerable. Along the way, you can also collect helmets
and body armour to improve your resistance to enemies. The rooms are viewed in
an isometric perspective with beautifully detailed graphics (there are even some
advertisements for Loriciels and a couple of its other games!). The sound
effects are also quite good. The combination of shoot-'em-up action and puzzle
elements makes this an interesting and entertaining game to play.

There's a bomb ticking away somewhere high up within a hotel, and you're the man
sent in to defuse it. Enemy agents are everywhere as you explore the lower
levels, with a mission to stop you at all costs. Exploring the floors and its
contents reveals secrets, information, and more importantly, keys. It's a clever
game requiring a lot of thought as you roam around reaching higher floors, with
a lot of humour included too; don't mess with the fuses! Colourful graphics
with decent animation and a few audio effects add to a pleasing and entertaining
game.

Take on the alien scum and lay waste to their planets in this amusing
top-scrolling shoot-'em-up. Whilst not the most original or best looking of this
type of game, the action moves along at a nice pace, and the ability to destroy
the planet surface structures below is a pleasant addition to the usual
slaughtering of waves of incoming aliens. As the game progresses, it does become
somewhat surreal – the flying strawberries on the second level in particular!
It's also notable for its peculiar hardware scrolling effect called Rotovision.